The 2014 Blackboard upgrade has been successfully completed. For more information on new and improved features see the TEL website.
Turnitin scheduled maintenance on July 26th
Turnitin have informed us of scheduled maintenance on July 26th, as follows:
“The Turnitin service may be unavailable during a scheduled maintenance period on Saturday, July 26th, 2014, from 9 AM to 9 PM U.S. Pacific Time (click for local time). We will be making significant upgrades to improve capacity and scalability as our service utilization grows. An announcement will appear for users within Turnitin in advance of when the system will be unavailable for this scheduled maintenance. This maintenance will affect Turnitin and TurnitinUK users. Instructors are encouraged to modify assignment due dates either before or at least several hours after the scheduled maintenance window.”
Turnitin also provides updates via the Turnitin System Status page or via Twitter at @TurnitinStatus.
Blackboard upgrade – summer 2014
The 2014 Blackboard upgrade will take place between Tuesday 22nd July and Friday 25th July. A temporary read-only replacement service will be available during this time. Please do not edit courses after Sunday 20th July until the upgrade is complete. Edits made during this time will not be saved. The last date to request external accounts before the upgrade is Friday 18th July, by 4pm.
The familiar interface remains in the new version (which is known as SP14), but there are improvements in the student and staff experience, particularly in relation to online submission and marking.
Once again, the content of this year’s unit courses will be copied into 2014-15 versions from 1st August. This means that you may see 2013 as well as 2014 courses on Blackboard. Historic and current versions are clearly identified by a year suffix.
Further information and short videos on some of the new features can be found on the Blackboard Upgrade website.
If you have any questions please contact tel-help@bristol.ac.uk
Blackboard and QMP upgrades and other TEL developments
There are a number of technology enhanced learning (TEL) developments happening this year, including upgrades of both Blackboard and Questionmark during the summer.
The Blackboard upgrade will take place between Tuesday 22nd July and Friday 25th July. Questionmark will be upgraded during the week beginning Monday 11th August.
Update on network and service outage – 3 July
Update from IT Services:
At 12 noon today there was a power outage that affected network facilities and the data centre in the Computer Centre. This outage had the effect of removing network access across the University and making the majority of online services unavailable, including the University website.
Power came back very quickly but both the network and services needed to be restarted. The network was restored at around 12:45 . Individual services were restored as soon as possible thereafter. The majority of services were back by around 14:00.
Most services are now back with the exception of the Library and IT Services websites. Staff who access their Gmail via the IT Services website are advised to do so via the University portal, MyBristol.
As the IT Services website is currently unavailable we will continue to provide updates via the IT Services Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/uob.it and Twitter account @BristolUniIT.
If you are experiencing any ongoing problems please contact the IT Service Desk (service-desk@bristol.ac.uk / 0117 92 87870) for assistance.
TurningPoint 5 upgrade – 23 June
This is a reminder that there will be a University wide upgrade to TurningPoint 5 on Monday (23 June). Users should note:
1. Any older version will be removed and TurningPoint 5 installed instead. In some cases it may take a few days for the upgrade to appear. However, if you still do not have TurningPoint 5 by Friday 27 June the advice is to notify service-desk@bristol.ac.uk.
2. TurningPoint 5 presents some interface changes. We therefore strongly recommend that users watch this 10 minute video which will explain five things you need to know before using TurningPoint 5 for the first time.
Turnitin Service Normal
Turnitin have sent us the following update:
Some users may have experienced some problems with TurnitinUK between 15:01 and 16:25 AM BST. System is normal now.
Please accept our apologies for any disruption this caused.
Turnitin Service Degradation
We have just received the following message from Turnitin:
TurnitinUK is experiencing an intermittent issue that impacts integrations.
We are working to resolve this and will provide updates.
This could affect us, as we use Turnitin through an integration with Blackboard. We will pass on any updates we receive.
TurningPoint v5 upgrade – 23 June 2014
On Monday 23 June there will be a University wide upgrade to TurningPoint version 5. Users and support staff should note that:
- There are a few key interface changes in TurningPoint v5 which end users should understand before they use it. A link to a short video explaining these will be circulated shortly.
- All existing installations of TurningPoint on University managed PCs will be automatically updated so you do not need to do anything. To check if you have one of these, refer to https://www.bris.ac.uk/it-services/advice/managedsystems/
- It many take a day or two for the update to appear on your PC. If, however, you do not have it by Friday 27 June you should email service-desk@bristol.ac.uk.
- We strong advise that all existing installations on non University manage PCs (e.g. home computers) are also updated so that they are running the same version. Further guidance on this will be available in the next few days.
Blackboard and QMP upgrades and other TEL developments
There are a number of technology enhanced learning (TEL) developments happening this year, including upgrades of both Blackboard and Questionmark during the summer.
The Blackboard upgrade will take place between Tuesday 22nd July and Friday 25th July. Questionmark will be upgraded during the week beginning Monday 11th August.